BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss said he had fast-tracked the development of two rookie ruckmen in case the club's big man stocks nose-dived further.

With Jamie Charman (ankle) out for the season and Matthew Leuenberger's knee reconstruction still leaving him seven weeks from a return, the Lions have Mitch Clark as their only specialist.

While Jared Brennan and full-back Daniel Merrett have backed Clark up at stages, Voss' ruck cupboard otherwise looks pretty bare.

When quizzed on whether he had a contingency plan if Clark joined the injury list, Voss joked he had spoken with premiership player and current ruck coach Beau McDonald about coming out of retirement.

"Your options start to dry up, I must say," he told afl.com.au.

"But at the same time we’ve got a couple of young ruckmen we’re working with feverishly right now that we’ve had to fast-track and put a fair bit of time into because who knows, they might get their opportunity."

They're the only two left on the books – rookies Joel Tippett and Daniel Murray, who were both originally drafted as project players.

The younger brother of Adelaide's Kurt, 20-year-old Tippett is 197cm and only took the sport up a few years ago after a background in basketball.

Murray, 199cm, was snapped up in last year's NAB AFL Rookie Draft from East Perth after playing in the shadow of boom West Coast recruit Nic Naitanui in Western Australia's under-18 team.

After a horror run of injuries in the first half of the season, Voss has already called on the AFL to investigate the possibility of a mid-season draft.

But for the time being, his obvious option is to elevate Tippett or Murray – or both – given Charman is able to be placed on the long-term injury list.

For now, Voss wants to keep it to an 'as-needed' basis.

"With the policies or procedures used in the AFL we can elevate a rookie as needed, so we’ve got a couple of long-term injured guys," he said.

"We’ve got no problem in bringing them in. They’ve all been covered off in case."